Portsmouth, Virginia

“ There are thirty-two independent cities: Alexandria, Bristol, Buena Vista, Charlottesville, Clifton Forge, Colonial Heights, Covington, Danville, Falls Church, Fredericksburg, Galax, Hampton (formerly, a second class city; now combined with the town of Phoebus and Elizabeth City County into a first class city since 1952) , Harrisonburg, Hopewell, Lynchburg, Martinsville, Newport News, Norfolk, Norton, Petersburg, Portsmouth, Radford, Richmond, Roanoke, South Boston, South Norfolk, Staunton, Suffolk, Virginia Beach, Waynesboro, Williamsburg and Winchester. ”

“ NE. of Boston, a handsome old town and favourite watering-place; near it is a U.S. navy-yard. 2, (12) , On the Ohio River, in Ohio; is the centre of an extensive iron industry. 3, (13) , Seaport and naval station on the Elizabeth River, Virginia.
Portsmouth (159) , the most important British naval station, a seaport and market-town, is situated on Portsea Island, on the coast of Hants, 15 m. SE. of Southampton. It is an unimposing town, but strongly fortified. St. Thomas's and Garrison Chapel are old churches with historical associations. ”

“ The total population of the state increased by 18% during the decade 1950-1960. However, during the same decade, Virginia changed in population rank from the fifteenth place among the forty-eight states to the sixteenth place among the fifty states. The ten most populated cities in Virginia are Norfolk, Richmond, Newport News, Portsmouth, Roanoke, Alexandria, Hampton, Lynchburg, Danville and Petersburg. During the past decade, the population of three cities has been materially increased through annexation. ”

“ Vagabonds, without visible property or vocation, are placed in workhouses, where they are well clothed, fed, lodged, and made to labor. Nearly the same method of providing for the poor prevails through all our States; and from Savannah to Portsmouth you will seldom meet a beggar. In the larger towns, indeed, they sometimes present themselves. These are usually foreigners, who have never obtained a settlement in any parish. I never yet saw a native American begging in the streets or highways. A subsistence is easily gained here ”

“ When I look back to Portsmouth as I knew it, it occurs to me that it must have been in some respects unique among New England towns. There were, for instance, no really poor persons in the place; every one had some sufficient calling or an income to render it unnecessary ”

“ Although Portsmouth Harbour is so interesting and full of life, when the time comes to up anchor and make one’s way out into the Solent past the immortal Victory and the host of other craft which seem to be ever hanging in congested groups just outside or just inside the Point and Point Battery, one is generally ready. Portsmouth may be an exciting and interesting, but it cannot be called a restful, haven. ”

“ The old-time aspect of Portsmouth is gone for ever. An almost complete transformation has taken place in appearance, in thought, and manner in little over a century, and where the body of Jack the Painter hung, high as Haman, from a lofty gallows on Blockhouse Beach, no criminals swing to-day. ”

“ That a bell, captured at Louisburg by Sir William Pepperell, should summon to the worship of God a people long forgetful of that proud achievement? Such are the evidences of an innate conservatism which has kept alive the old traditions of New England.
Thus for three hundred years Portsmouth has lived the happy life of a country town, and its historian sadly notes that until 1900 its population did not rise to 10,000. The historian need feel no regret: it is not by numbers that we may measure the stateliness of a city ”

“ The rich red rust on the gables and roofs of ancient buildings looking seaward would tell him that. There is a fitful saline flavor in the air, and if while he gazed a dense white fog should come rolling in, like a line of phantom breakers, he would no longer have any doubts.
It is of course the oldest part of the town that skirts the river, though few of the notable houses that remain are to be found there. Like all New England settlements, Portsmouth was built of wood, and has been subjected to extensive conflagrations. You rarely come across a brick building that is not shockingly modern. ”

“ Opposite to the North, and at a very small distance, about 20 leagues, is the famous Portsmouth, the grand arsenal of the English. The remainder of their coast runs nearly parallel opposite to ours. Nature has done every thing for our rivals; nothing for us. Their shores are safe and clear themselves daily from obstructions. They abound in deep soundings, in the means of shelter, in harbours and excellent ports; ours are, on the contrary, full of rocks, the water is shallow, and they are every day choking up. ”

“ Edward VI. passed down the road to Cowdray, and Elizabeth, who was always “progressing” about the country, [Pg 233] and, like the Irishman, never seemed so much at home as when she was abroad, halted here on her way to that princely seat, and put in a day or so hunting in the Forest.
Beyond the fact that the “Merry Monarch” journeyed to Portsmouth and stayed once at the “Castle” Inn, at Petersfield, we have no details of his hostelries. He was in a hurry when he came thus far, and troubled the Woolmer glades but little at any time. ”

“ The real centre of the town was, of course, the Common Hard—which is one of the streets of the world like the Cannebière of Marseilles, the King's Road of Brighton, or the High Street of Oxford. Portsmouth cannot be conceived as existing without the Common Hard. It is a broad street facing the harbor ”

“ For reasons not worth setting forth, the trade with the Indies abruptly closed, having ruined as well as enriched many a Portsmouth adventurer. This explains the empty warehouses and the unused wharves. Portsmouth remains the interesting widow of a once very lively commerce. I fancy that few fortunes are either made or lost in Portsmouth nowadays. ”

“ Portsmouth is served by the Boston & Maine railway, by electric lines to neighbouring towns, and in summer by a steamboat daily to the Isles of Shoals. The city is pleasantly situated, mainly on a peninsula, and has three public parks. Portsmouth attracts many visitors during the summer season. ”

“ Stories innumerable have been told of his childlike innocence of landsmen’s ways, and pictures and caricatures without end have been drawn and painted with the object of making men smile at his strange doings. Here is a caricature dated so far back as 1772, showing “The Sailor’s Return from Portsmouth to London.” The point of view chosen is, apparently, only a mile or two from Portsmouth, for in the background rise some ruins obviously intended to represent Porchester Castle. ”

“ Rye Beach is the most popular of these seashore resorts, and not far beyond is Piscataqua River, the New Hampshire eastern boundary. 228
Here is the quaint and quiet old town of Portsmouth, three miles from the sea, and having about ten thousand people. Opposite, on Continental Island, adjoining the Maine shore, is the Kittery Navy Yard, where the warship "Kearsarge" was built. Commerce has about surrendered to the superior attractions of a summer resort at Portsmouth, and the comfortable old dwellings in their extensive gardens show the wealth accumulated by bygone generations. ”

“ Portsmouth.—The existence of remains of the Roman castrum at Porchester, situated on the upper waters of Portsmouth Harbour, goes to show that in those early times the value of this part of the coast as a great harbour was recognized. It is curious, therefore, that no town of any importance was built at Portsmouth until the twelfth century. The actual building of the town was commenced in the reign of Richard I, and a charter was granted in the year 1194. ”

“ The upland country, with its poorer soil and more difficult conditions of life, also approaches nearer to the sea in Maine and New Hampshire than farther south, so that, although Portsmouth, too, has a fine harbor, those states have always been more thinly settled than the others. ”

“ God....” In those days men did well to trust to grace, considering the condition of the roads; but in more recent times coach-proprietors put their trust in their cattle and McAdam, and dropped the piety.
A fine crowd of coaches left town daily in the ’20’s. The “Portsmouth Regulator” left at eight a.m., and reached Portsmouth at five o’clock in the afternoon; the “Royal Mail” started from the “Angel,” by St. ”

“ I would like to write about several of those ancient Dames, as they were affectionately called, and to materialize others of the shadows that stir in my recollection; but this would be to go outside the lines of my purpose, which is simply to indicate one of the various sorts of changes that have come over the vie intime of formerly secluded places like Portsmouth—the obliteration of odd personalities, or, if not the obliteration, the general disregard of them. Everywhere in New England the impress of the past is fading out. ”

“ There are recreation grounds for the naval and military forces in the vicinity. There is a railway station (Portsmouth Harbour) on the Hard, from which passenger steamers serve Ryde in the Isle of Wight. A ferry and a floating bridge connect with Gosport. The port has a considerable trade in coal, timber, fruits and agricultural produce. ”

“ Neither is Portsmouth a very favourable specimen of a British port, considered solely in reference to the picturesque. A town situated on a humble point, and fortified after the manner of the Low Countries, with an excellent haven, suggests more images of the useful than of the pleasing; while a background of modest receding hills offers little beyond the verdant swales of the country. In this respect England itself has the fresh beauty of youth, rather than the mellowed hues of a more advanced period of life ”

“ In Portsmouth, more than in any place in England, the policy of England is manifest. Portsmouth is one vast fort, and every other man you see on her streets is a soldier. You come upon vast fortifications everywhere, long lines of earth works stretch in every direction on the coast, commanding every approach to the city, and vast stores of ammunition are piled away safe and secure but ready for use at a moment’s notice. Portsmouth is a watch dog for that part of the island, and it would be a daring foe that would attack her. ”

“ Portsmouth claims that in the Civil War, in proportion to size, it sent more soldiers to the Southern armies and had more dead than any other city. The capacious naval hospital and its fine grove of trees front Portsmouth towards the harbor. Norfolk has St. Paul's Church, founded in 1730, as its chief Revolutionary relic—an 80 ancient building, with an old graveyard, and having in its steeple the indentation made by a cannon-shot, when a British fleet in 1776 bombarded and partly burnt the town. An old-fashioned round ball rests in the orifice ”

“ Inland from the castle lay the little straggling town of Southsea; and beyond it again, still higher up the estuary, appeared the spires and roofs of Portsmouth, its harbour crowded with a perfect forest of masts. Some half a dozen men-o’-war lay at anchor at Spithead; and the waters of the Solent were dotted with the sails of craft of all sizes, from the stately frigate to the humble but enterprising bumboat. ”

“ The surroundings of Portsmouth are, in fact, very modern, and probably the most ancient edifice here is the High Level [Pg 357] railway station: a class of building which age has no power to render venerable. The latest effort of modernity is to be seen from this point in the Town Hall, of which every inhabitant of the allied towns of Portsmouth, Southsea, Gosport, and Landport is inordinately proud. And if size should count for anything, they have cause for pride in this municipal effort; for Portsmouth Town Hall is particularly immense. ”

“ Portsmouth Harbour opens into Spithead, one of the arms of the Channel separating the Isle of Wight from the mainland. The harbour widens inwards in bottle form, Portsmouth lying on the east shore of the neck, with Gosport opposite to it on the west side. Portsmouth proper may be distinguished as the garrison town; Portsea as the naval station with the dockyards; Landport is occupied chiefly by the houses of artisans; and Southsea is a residential quarter and a favourite watering-place. ”

“ If you chance to live in a town where the authorities cannot rest until they have destroyed every precious tree within their blighting reach, you will be especially charmed by the beauty of the streets of Portsmouth. In some parts of the town, when the chestnuts are in blossom, you would fancy yourself in a garden in fairyland. In spring, summer, and autumn the foliage is the glory of the fair town—her luxuriant green and golden treeses! Nothing could seem more like the work of enchantment than the spectacle which certain streets in Portsmouth present in the midwinter after a heavy snowstorm. ”

“ The city possesses the deepest harbor on the coast and important coastwise trade. The harbor never freezes. Portsmouth contains a superior line of stores and several important manufacturing interests. ”

“ The beautiful plain at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio rivers, where now the flourishing town of Portsmouth is located, forms the site of a singular and interesting series of works. It has been preferred to present them together, as they seem to be intimately connected, leaving the reader to form his own conclusions respecting them. ”

“ From such humble beginnings were evolved some of the best public high schools at present in New England.
Portsmouth did not escape the witchcraft delusion, though I believe that no hangings took place within the boundaries of the township. Dwellers by the sea are generally superstitious; sailors always are. There is something in the illimitable expanse of sky and water that dilates the imagination. The folk who live along the coast live on the edge of a perpetual mystery ”